Dec 15 2011:
Seriously, I think we work for housing, for food, and for shoes. Money is really one of the most ingenious inventions ever. But it's nothing but a means of exchange, and it means that instead of my employer having to give me twenty bunches of carrots after an hour's work, he gives me a piece of paper that says on it: "20 bunches of carrots OR one shoe." How neat! After two hours of work I can trade 2 papers for either 40 bunches of carrots or a pair of shoes. On the back of the paper it lists several thousand other things that I could trade the paper for. Like a 100th of a genuine tall Swiss cuckoo clock. Instead of giving my landlady 1000 bunches of carrots to keep my apartment for a month, I can give her just 50 of these trading sheets. Hell of an invention!

Of course, we've simplified the back of the sheet a lot, by just leaving out everything. So now no one quite agrees how much the paper is worth, and it's back to bartering. Still, you must admit the little pieces of paper make the barter easier.

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Market Economy might not be perfect but it is by far the best system we have so far.

Money is one of the fundamental tools of markets. The only problem is the lack of education of most people in economics. And according to offer/ demand law: yes, money is one way to measure value of things. One way!
Ceteris paribus sic stantibus, a work that pays more as a greater economical value. It seems clear and logical to me.

Yes, we work to live. But sometimes, more often that expect, we live to work. But I'm sure we can develop a better vision of the economy by keeping the vision that money is an exchange and not a reward (slight but important difference).